President Vladimir Putin of Russia replaced his minister of defence on Sunday with an economist, shaking up his national security team for the first time since his invasion of Ukraine and signalling his determination to put Russia’s war effort on an economically sustainable footing.

Putin kept the minister, Sergei Shoigu, in his inner circle, tapping him to run the country’s security council — a position giving Shoigu close access to the President but little direct authority. Shoigu will replace Nikolai Patrushev, a former KGB colleague of Putin, whom the Kremlin said would be moved to a position to be announced in the coming days.

Andrei Belousov, an economist who had served as first deputy Prime Minister since 2020 and long been seen as one of Putin’s most trusted economic advisers, was nominated to become the new defence chief.

The Kremlin said Russia’s ballooning defence budget warranted putting an economist in charge, and that Belousov would help make the Russian military “more open to innovation”. The cabinet shifts represented a rare overhaul for Putin, who tends to avoid rash changes, and they could mark a turning point in Russia’s more than two-year war in Ukraine.

He removed from the military’s helm a man whom Russian pro-war commentators and western analysts alike held partly responsible for Moscow’s many failures at the outset of the invasion. And by installing an economist, he tacitly acknowledged the importance of industrial might to any military victory.

Shoigu’s potential dismissal was an object of speculation from the war’s first days, when Russian forces appeared unprepared for the determination of Ukraine’s resistance.

Last summer, mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin staged a mutiny to try to remove Shoigu, the defence minister for more than a decade. But Putin, who analysts say values loyalty, stuck with Shoigu.

Now, with the Russian military having gained the battlefield initiative, Putin is signalling a greater willingness to make changes and to show that Russia has the discipline and economic capacity to wage a long war. A possible shift in Shoigu’s stature was telegraphed last month when Russian authorities arrested one of his top deputies on corruption charges.

But the Kremlin said on Sunday that another frequent target of critics of Russia’s war effort — General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian general staff and the highest-ranking Russian military officer — would remain in his post.

It is unclear how much authority over the war Shoigu will retain. While his new job parallels that of the US President’s national security adviser, analysts say that in Putin’s Russia, the role has limited influence because it does not directly control the military or a security agency.

New York Times News Service